Dave Zirin: Why did Newark’s only movie theater, co-owned by Shaquille O’Neal, just pull a scheduled showing of a documentary about Mumia Abu-Jamal? No one is talking, but this is a story that stinks worse than the Jersey swamps.

Mark Naison: During the 1960’s, New York city was the scene of an incredibly powerful anti-war and student movement. Like Occupy Wall Street, this movement was often attacked for being unrepresentative of the city’s working class. In reality, this movement was far more diverse in class and race than critics at the time, or historians, realized.

The murder of Fred Hampton and the eradication of the Panthers, thanks to COINTELPRO, have led directly to the current, pitiful state of African-American leadership. From Jesse Jackson and Harold Washington to Barack Obama, we see a steady decline in the willingness of black leaders to stand up to racism or police abuses, to the extent that a white cop can arrest a black Harvard professor simply because the latter is in his own home, and the black president of the United States all-but-apologizes — to the cop.

Wellness

Carole Bartolotto: The problem with concluding that GMOs are safe is that the argument for their safety rests solely on animal studies. These studies are offered as evidence that the debate over GMOs is over. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Environmentalism

Margo McCall: There’s increasing evidence that adopting a plant-based diet is better for human health, the planet, and of course for the more than 9 billion animals that are killed for consumption each year in the U.S alone.